What if Doomworld community would make a city level, where everyone has an own residence/place/estate/land/anything? The first person makes the streets, the shape of his place (which might be anything he wants) and uploads his work here. Then, the next person expands the streets, decides the place and the shape of his own place, makes it and uploads it here again. And it goes on until everyone makes something who wants. There might be also a second phase (like in ZDCMP Take 2) when everyone details the streets and adds some common places. (max. 5 for example, including a central building like a major hall)

Limitations are needed in the definition: the estate is a place which has streets as borders, and there isn't any obstacles in the way - so you can walk around that place constantly. The street itself might go on to the area of the estate, but there must be something that closes the way. (chasm, barrier, gate, fence, garage door, etc.)

The question of keys is a complex question, it needs to be discussed later.

What do you think about this project? In my view, it might be a nice and original map, especially with a good choice of textures. =)

I'd think it be better if you give everyone a "plot" of land, say 640x640 or 512x512 and give them freedom, with each submission taking up a "residence" spot. I had a similar idea once, and never got around to it, so I'm just pitching in :P

However, in this case, the map of the city would look like a chesstable, which looks artificial...I think everyone would be allowed to make an own residence with a shape that he wants. If you want just a simple 512x512 square, then, do it! =)

However, in this case, the map of the city would look like a chesstable, which looks artificial...I think everyone would be allowed to make an own residence with a shape that he wants. If you want just a simple 512x512 square, then, do it! =)

You'll need buffer space on the plots, 64 between units with roads 128 or something. If you make it ZDoom you can rotate then just set the floor, ceiling rotation and X Y offsets.

Katamori said:
The first person makes the streets, the shape of his place (which might be anything he wants) and uploads his work here. Then, the next person expands the streets, decides the place and the shape of his own place, makes it and uploads it here again. And it goes on until everyone makes something who wants.

A better idea might be for the first person to create and maintain the basic streetscape, with contributors claiming an existing block of "land" or uploading a wad containing the "plot" they propose to build on (giving some indication as to the location of driveways and the front of the residence) which can be added to the master map once the dimensions, orientation and height restrictions have been agreed upon. Individual owner-builders can then work pretty much on their own, though someone's going to have the fun job of merging textures and other resources at some point.

The question of keys is a complex question, it needs to be discussed later.

Pottus: it looks like a good idea, but I think, diagonal streets would make way harder to handle the form of the city. Except the 45 degrees ones...

GreyGhost: Sounds good and more organized =) I thought if every contributors would make the shape of their own estates, it would give a more "random" streetscape to the city than if only one person would create it - but it doesn't matter if the shape of the "lands" might be still custom for the contributors. This is the most important part of the project, I think =)

About keys: I think this map should be Boom-compatible because that's way simplier to bugfix, test and create than ZDoom stuff. My idea for keys is the next:

There are 10 ways in Boom format to lock doors: no keys, red key, blue key, yellow key, red skull, blue skull, yellow skull, all keys, all skulls, all keys+skulls. (I hope I count it well...) We may divide these combinations between houses equally. For example, if there are 20 contributors, there might be 5 houses without keys, and 5 to each keys - or 2 for every possible combination. And there might be some special estates which contain the key/skull you need to go on.

Of course, everything I tell are only ideas, so I'm open to your ideas too. =)

I had a similar idea a while back, but figured it would fall through with people needing to claim tag numbers in advance. If you're making a city, it would almost certainly warrant use of 3D Floors and there's going to be loads of tagged control sectors as a result. Unless you're making a city of bungalows and other single storey structures.

DooMAD said:
I had a similar idea a while back, but figured it would fall through with people needing to claim tag numbers in advance. If you're making a city, it would almost certainly warrant use of 3D Floors and there's going to be loads of tagged control sectors as a result. Unless you're making a city of bungalows and other single storey structures.

Well, rewriting tags might be the part of merging estates - or we should just use one map which will be sent to the contributors.

Also, I'm thinking on that this project should be Boom-compatible, which might handle only fake 3D floors :P

I think this could be a fun architectural idea. As far as map layout/city (town) planning; what if a 'template' map was created with premade roads and say, about 20 plots. They could be various sizes and shapes. We don't need to worry about equal square footage or anything (I wouldn't mind taking a small awkward plot.) They could have numbers placed in the center of them so people knew what they were claiming. Each person could download the template map, remove the number and build their plot out, then re-submit it. It would be up to the project leader/city planner to re-assign the tags from each plot as they copied and pasted them into a final master map. We all wouldn't see the results until it was finished.

After that I think it could/should be up to the project leader/city planner to assign keys and key doors altering our submissions slightly. This would make playing through the final exciting for all those who submitted a map. 'oh crap, MY building is locked, well I better find that key so I can get into my own friggin' place!'

Any unused plots at the end could be turned into parks by the project leader/city planner to let the map breathe.

Eh, the problem with tags is very easy to solve I think. It seems that maximum tag number is somewhere around 65000 so that is enough to do something like this:
-DooMAD uses tags 10xxx
-Phobus uses tags 11xxx
etc

Memfis said:
Eh, the problem with tags is very easy to solve I think. It seems that maximum tag number is somewhere around 65000 so that is enough to do something like this:
-DooMAD uses tags 10xxx
-Phobus uses tags 11xxx
etc

Doom Builder 2 has an option in its Preferences or Configuration dialog or whatever it's called, that will automatically remap conflicting tags when pasting. It's kind of an obscure and out-of-the-way option given that it's not the kind of thing you'd want to always leave on or off, but it's useful for merging maps together.

A thing to keep in mind is that (with maybe a few possible exceptions?) real cities are not always 100% perfect square grids of roads. Look at cities like Portland, San Francisco, and the like; there are parts of these cities where roads twist in all sorts of different directions to account for hills and otherwise uneven terrain. After all, why waste resources and man-hours flattening enough land for an entire city when it is easier, more cost-effective, and more pleasing to the eye to build over and around all the hills and valleys?

WildWeasel said:
A thing to keep in mind is that (with maybe a few possible exceptions?) real cities are not always 100% perfect square grids of roads. Look at cities like Portland, San Francisco, and the like; there are parts of these cities where roads twist in all sorts of different directions to account for hills and otherwise uneven terrain. After all, why waste resources and man-hours flattening enough land for an entire city when it is easier, more cost-effective, and more pleasing to the eye to build over and around all the hills and valleys?

Yes, but in a Boom-compatible WAD, making slopy streets seems an impossible, or at least way too time-consuming task. However, there might be height variations between some streets, like as it was done in Doxylamine Moon:

That's why you should map out the general area of the "city" first. Set up your zones. Some places can have rows of aligned streets, and some areas can have streets that are angled. You can plot off non-square blobish areas. Then number the plots and people can pick out which plot they want to develop on.

Mancubus II said:
That's why you should map out the general area of the "city" first. Set up your zones. Some places can have rows of aligned streets, and some areas can have streets that are angled. You can plot off non-square blobish areas. Then number the plots and people can pick out which plot they want to develop on.

True! Actually, I already started thinking on the change of the base when GreyGhost explained his plans. =)

When I read the (original) thread title I thought you were proposing a community project where the mappers make a level inspired by somewhere in their hometown. Not meaning to derail but a Hometown project would be quite cool IMO.

Your actual idea is still interesting though. It could be fun to explore if it's made well, though I wouldn't be interested in contributing myself.

When I read the (original) thread title I thought you were proposing a community project where the mappers make a level inspired by somewhere in their hometown. Not meaning to derail but a Hometown project would be quite cool IMO.

Your actual idea is interesting though. It could be fun to explore if it's made well, though I wouldn't be interested in contributing myself.

This is interesting as a concept, but unless someone else fills in the gameplay after the architecture is done (and changing that architecture as needed to suit gameplay, too), it's just not going to be fun as a whole.

We need someone to work as an architect to create "foundation" for the area. How town looks generally in map, creates spots for players to build and perhaps creates content for the rest of area. Egregor gave us nice little illustration, how town can be interesting.

Then there are other things.
Textures: Do we use stock textures, or should we get people to create new textures?
Theme: Do we got set theme, like purely for modern city, medieval, hellish or freedom of choice. I would like to choose latter, to make town more interesting.
Enemy and item placement: It's just for finalization for the map, but someone should be designated for this.
Organizing: List of interested people, leaders and everything else I don't know. :P

Well, that was my piece of points and ideas. I think there's more than that, but we'll let time roll on...

Phobus said:
At that scale, I'd say some of those plots might be a bit small, but it is an interesting street layout, which is good.

This is definitely true, even I could see that some places became too small, but I think it's not bad if someone doesn't want to make something big, but just a sign and a small "garden" for himself. Or if they won't be claimed, they might be common areas (shops, gardens, parking zone, etc.)